


Pillow Talk

by EarendilEldar



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Backstory, Bonding, Family History, M/M, Pillow Talk, Romance, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23478547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarendilEldar/pseuds/EarendilEldar
Summary: Early in their relationship, immersed in afterglow, Celebrimbor and Erestor share some of their family backgrounds and formative days with one another.
Relationships: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Erestor
Kudos: 11





	Pillow Talk

“There’s something I have been wondering…,” Celebrimbor said as he lay in bed, his arm around Erestor curled at his side. “It’s nothing you _must_ speak of, of course, if you don’t wish….” 

Erestor’s lips curled wryly against Celebrimbor’s firm pectoral. “I cannot say if I wish to speak of it or not until you tell me what you wish to know,” he murmured.

Celebrimbor shook his head in fond exasperation. “I just mean that if you find it far too personal a matter, I would understand.”

Erestor raised his head to look up at Celebrimbor. “If there are matters between us that remain too personal… I think we may have gone about that last bit rather prematurely. Quite some number of times now….” At Celebrimbor’s slightly worried look, Erestor snickered and said, “Ask me your question, foolish smith.”

Celebrimbor sighed and was quiet for a moment. “It’s something you said to me some months ago, that first evening when we were together on the slope by the _ereg_ ring.”

Erestor frowned slightly, trying to think what they might have talked of that night. It was certainly memorable for other reasons. 

“When you told me of your family,” Celebrimbor clarified. “I’ve never understood, Eres, what could have made you think that would matter? To your position here, or how I feel about you.”

Erestor ducked his head subconsciously and would have shifted away a bit but that Celebrimbor’s strong arm held him close. He’d meant what he said about not keeping back any of himself from his lover, though. “Not everyone sees things as you do,” Erestor said quietly. “Or, at least, in the First Age they didn’t. In Menegroth they didn’t, some of them….”

Celebrimbor reached across to run his fingers through Erestor’s hair. “I’d never been to Menegroth,” he said quietly. “Heard a lot about it, and its inhabitants, but… those were conflicting reports and heavily biased. Sounds as if it wasn’t very friendly from your perspective.”

Erestor shrugged. “Most of the time it was fine. Just that it was rather dependent upon who knew what in some situations. There were some who never liked what I was, what I represented, and if they couldn’t ignore me, did their best to make me miserable.”

“I’m sorry I brought this up, Eres,” Celebrimbor said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course it would be painful to speak of it. Please forgive me? We can change the subject.”

“I don’t mind speaking of it,” Erestor said. “With you, at least. In fact, it feels… relieving. I’ve never spoken of it before if I could avoid it.”

“I’ll always listen to you, my love,” Celebrimbor murmured, kissing Erestor’s forehead. 

“Of course you will,” Erestor smirked, “I’m your Chief Counselor.”

“That’s because you are wise as well as beautiful,” Celebrimbor grinned, holding Erestor closer. 

For a time, Erestor just snuggled against his lover, appreciatively stroking his well-toned chest. “You know,” he said softly after some while, “it is a strange thing, to have lived amongst different peoples and always wanted to hide some part of who I am, to fear that somehow my blood would out. I remember you saying to me that night that it was impossible for you to hide your lineage, of course, but I’ve always tried to use one part of mine to conceal the other. Always one part of me made me ‘lesser’ to some, but always it was a different part of me wherever I went. I’ve never thought before just how arbitrary it all is.”

“Aye,” Celebrimbor nodded. “Completely arbitrary and utterly meaningless.”

“Saeros was the worst of them, particularly after my father’s death.”

“Saeros…. Why do I know that name? Was he the one who was chased through the wood, stark -”

“Yes,” Erestor confirmed quickly. “I saw the whole thing that morning just outside the gates. I won’t say I cheered, but nor did I weep, and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving Elf. He was pitiable, though, in a way. For all his haughtiness, I found it in the records some years after his death that he had Noldorin heritage as well as Avarin. I suspect that was why he was especially unkind to me.”

“Your father had been one of Angrod’s captains, had he not?”

“Aegnor,” Erestor said, “but yes. He was in the Lord’s host whilst he was visiting Lady Galadriel when my father met my mother. They fell in love at once and were secretly wed within months, even before my father asked Lord Aegnor leave of his service. He told me once that when he did beg leave, instead of being furious, the lord told my father that he had the greatest wisdom any could possess and gave him leave to remain in Doriath as long as he wished.”

“What happened?” Celebrimbor asked, eager to get to know more about his lover’s life before Eregion.

“Well… I did. A year later, that is. We dwelt in Menegroth from my earliest days. My father was a guard of the King’s Hall and my mother was a herbs mistress, for a time. Until she left.”

“Left?” Celebrimbor frowned.

“Yes. I was not yet 14 summers. I had been in the garden harvesting herbs all morning and when I brought them back… naneth was not there. Nor any of her belongings. There was no letter, no word left with any. She simply departed. Some of my father’s friends in the guard heard that she’d been seen travelling east alone and leaving the borders of Doriath. It wasn’t long after that we had word that Eöl and the White Lady of Gondolin and their son had never returned to Nan Elmoth. We never did find out just what happened, but I expect she returned to the woodland and her kin there.”

“Just you and your father, then,” Celebrimbor said quietly.

“Aye. My father never really understood. I think he was left not quite himself after that. But he loved me and I never wanted for anything, until the day he went to aid Aegnor at the Bragollach and never returned. I was apprenticed to Daeron by that time and he was rather decent to me, even if his ‘friend’ was a horrid creature.”

“I’m glad you had a good relationship with your father at the least,” Celebrimbor said, hardly able to not think of the vicious last words his own father had spoken to him.

Erestor didn’t know many of particularities, but he knew that the estrangement between Celebrimbor and his father and uncles had been absolute even long before the cataclysm of the First Age. “Did your mother make the crossing?” Erestor asked. 

Celebrimbor shook his head. “No. She would not go further than Formenos. I heard that she returned to Tirion with Finarfin’s people and my daernana, but I don’t know. I was very young then, I’d not had 50 summers. She wanted me to remain with her….”

“What did you want?” Erestor asked gently.

Celebrimbor didn’t answer immediately, just lying for a moment with his eyes closed, holding Erestor. “I wanted everything to go back to the way it had been,” he said after a long while. “I thought that helping my father and uncles would achieve that, and that we could all return to Tirion when it was over.”

Erestor wrapped his arm around Celebrimbor and sighed. “It’s a wonder we made it through those days at all.”

“Yes, it is,” Celebrimbor agreed. “But we did, and we found one another. And that’s all that matters now.”

“I think it shall be all that ever matters to me,” Erestor said softly, his long fingers just barely stroking Celebrimbor’s fine cheekbones as he leaned in for a kiss and Celebrimbor wrapped his arms tightly around Erestor’s waist once again.


End file.
